Zoomcar, an India-based car sharing marketplace, announced Tuesday its launch of operations in the Philippines. The company plans to invest $25 million across the Philippines in the next 12 months to fuel its expansion.
In its recent push into the Southeast Asia region, the company appointed Gene Angelo Ferrer as its country head in the Philippines to help scale their business, according to Zoomcar’s statement.
The company announced its plans to have 1,000 cars by January 2022, with an intention to scale to 20,000 cars on the marketplace by the end of 2022.
It said it will partner with individual vehicle owners and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who own multiple vehicles in order to reach these marketplace supply objectives.
With its first operations in Metro Manila, it looks to launch in other cities such as Cebu and Davao later in 2022. It expects to cover 20 cities across the Philippines by 2023.
Through its sharing platform, Zoomcar allows individuals to book a vehicle for a minimum duration of 6 hours with a maximum duration of up to 6 months. The company focuses on ensuring a robust, tech-enabled process that focuses on simplicity. The entire booking process is digital, ranging from payment to vehicle unlocking. The startup also focuses on 24×7 roadside assistance and round-the-clock customer support across multiple contact mediums.
“At Zoomcar, our mission is to democratize car access across the world’s high growth urban centers. With its low personal vehicle penetration rates, the Philippines is the ideal market in the SEA region for us to kick off our car sharing marketplace. We’re committed to long-term investment in the Philippines to provide an environmentally responsible mobility solution that provides robust economic empowerment opportunities to the broader Filipino community,” said Greg Moran, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Zoomcar.
Zoomcar Vice President and Country Head in the Philippines Gene Angelo Ferrer also said: “We are very excited to be launching in the Philippines and will look to positively impact the Filipino community with our world-leading car sharing marketplace. Zoomcar will offer safe, affordable, and accessible means of personal mobility to our renters as well as financial fulfillment to our vehicle owners. We look forward to scaling up aggressively in the coming months and building comprehensive partnerships across the Filipino ecosystem that will help contribute to our future growth.”
Zoomcar launched India’s first car-sharing platform in 2013, and today is the market leader in the car-sharing ecosystem with approximately 10,000 cars on its platform and a presence across 5 countries.
It allows individuals to rent from a diverse pool of cars by the hour or by the day. Headquartered in Bangalore, it employs over 300 people and operates in 50+ cities across India. In 2020, Zoomcar launched Zoomcar Mobility Services, the company’s enterprise software as a service (SaaS) based mobility solutions offering covering, white-labeled subscription services and IoT based driver behavior monitoring solutions. Uri Levine, the founder of mobility unicorn Waze, is the company’s Chairman.